Salty As Tears
by Pachelbel
Summary: AU. Pirates and prisoners; but what treasure could the Captain possibly want, when he has everything? One prisoner doubts it's anything anyone can give....
1. Chapter One

A/N: Well, I was going to put this fic off for a while, but then rayemars's bio said something about wanting to see a YuGiOh pirate fic. And so this little AU-idea which had been happy to sit idly, sprang up and threatened to break my fingers. Try to reason that I haven't read a pirate story since I was nine, and does it listen? No-oo.... But enjoy it! Even though right now it's raw and unbeta'd, until I can loop Llyxius or Borath into it...*grins at betas*

Disclaimer: Plot is mine. Characters aren't. Both facts are sad.

  
  


Salty As Tears

Chapter One: The PRISONERS

  
  


Yami Bakura:

I feel shackles, cold and wet, gritty with salt. Pain jolts me awake when, with an air of finality, one of my captors jerks on my chains, testing to see if I really am locked up. The cuffs are slightly bigger than a 'perfect fit', so my wrists slide around. I hope if I just twist my fingers right the metal will fall off.

But no. And now a tanned, dark-haired crew member is coming over-feels strange, calling him a 'pirate' when I'm a thief and a murderer, which is almost the same thing.

Wind blasts against me, waves rocking the boat in a terrible, constant rhythm...but I won't cry out...I won't....

Moaning from somewhere close by. Not me, thankfully.

There are two other prisoners, both smaller than me. One has bizarre, multi-colored hair, and he looks young. He must be a child. I've heard before pirates take child prisoners, and I'm not horribly surprised to see it's true.

What surprises me is the other one. His eyes are wide in a terrified expression, but he looks...he looks just like me. At a younger and kinder age, around fourteen maybe. I'm only nineteen now.... Hell, everyone seems younger than me now that I look around.

Abducted by infants. This day can only get worse.

The other prisoner, the one that resembles me, is bleeding. Shiny red ribbons stream down from a nasty gash on his cheek, joining other stains on the deck.

I'm bleeding, too; I've just noticed. My arm is slick and uncomfortable as blood slides down from a hole in my hand to slip under the loose sleeve of my shirt. It gathers in the hollow of my shoulder and my armpit.

Clarity is starting to build up in my head again. That's good; maybe the coherence has brought a plan for escape with it. Hopefully one that won't require the use of my hand. Or hands, actually. I don't think I can do much with my upper body right now, suspended as I am. Unfortunately, that will make unchaining myself a chore.

Thumping against the soft wooden boards that make up the deck; shouting and grunting, the sounds of a fight. I know those sounds better than is probably healthy; maybe when I escape I'll back off the brawling, though. I certainly wouldn't be here if I hadn't challenged a rather obvious pirate.

The fight has moved over here a bit, and I think they're going to trample the little ones. The spike-headed boy thinks so, too, because he grabs my look-alike and wriggles back as far as he can get.

A blond pirate, wearing the same clothes as his shipmates and only a bit taller than me and a few years younger, is tied and dropped next to me. He's bloody and swelling already from the beating his crewmates have just given him. They don't bother to secure him; they want another excuse to attack him, and if he moves so much as an inch they're likely to spring on him again.

I wonder what he did. He seems to be pretty well-endowed, wearing more jewelry on him than I've seen on most noblewomen, so it's odd that he hasn't been robbed.

The burly guy I challenged in the bar speaks around his split lips. I can't help but feel smug about the pained expression he takes at just opening his mouth. "To betray the Captain is slow death. Let Malik's torture be a lesson to any other mutineers. Get back to work now."

Not very surprising. "Captain" hides away and hires ugly thugs to do his work. No wonder the kid mutinied.

There are reasons I work alone, betrayal being only one of them.

My hand is cold now. That isn't good. I really think if I don't do something about that hole, I'm going to end up with only one hand to work with.

I try to move it, to get blood flowing back to my fingers, and can't suppress the almost-sob of agony. I can see bone, shining and sparkling white, poking out of dark red drying gore.

It should hurt more than it does. It's odd to say that, because having your bones stabbing through your hand is agony. It's just not as bad as I thought it would be.

  
  


***

Yugi Mutou:

I really don't know how long I've been here.

Everyday since I can remember, I've awakened with the same question burning loudly through someone else's voice, always echoing in my mind-"How long?". As if it really matters anymore. As if somehow I'll have gained a sense of time overnight.

I wonder if it's the same for these new people. Have they started to forget their lives beyond the planks of this ship?

Wow. They must be brothers, twins even. Their hair is white, like the ashes of a dying volcano, and while they both have dark brown eyes one is aloof, his face hateful and intimidating. The other is scared.

I'm scared.

This is the first time we've been to shore, that I can remember anyway, and we're surely going to be caught. I know we are. And God have mercy on the poor men who would dare to oppose this ship.

I look over at Katsuya and Tristan, who are preparing to fit the brothers with working shackles, now that Malik is subdued. Seto Kaiba, who will probably be our new first mate, glares at me, orders me back to work. I scramble to my feet and, bucket in hand, run over to the fishing nets. Time to clean out our supper. Again.

  
  


***

Ryou Bakura:

He looks like me. And I'm no ordinary looking Joe.

Well, I do wish I had his face. I'm willing to bet that no one would threaten me if I looked like that. I inch closer to him, but slip on my blood-and his-and the pirates laugh scornfully. The other me ignores all of this, either too dazed from the fact that there are bones poking through the top of his hand, or embarrassed.

I hope he's embarrassed instead of in shock. Maybe I should help him? I doubt the pirates know about 'shock'. Mother always told me that sometimes people die from their injuries, not because the devil enters them through the wound, but because their bodies can't handle the stress of being so badly hurt. The other me looks very injured. Mum also said you need to keep the person warm, and you need to treat the wound. That was before the townspeople burned her.

I wonder what she'd think of this?


	2. Chapter Two

A/N: This update made possible by all the (sudden) reviews Chapter One received this past month. Sorry it's taken me so long to update, but you ought to be happy to know that I have bits of the next chapter set down. Unless this chapter disappoints you and you stop reading, that is.

For now, we have Chapter Two, which I've actually had done for almost six months, but every time I look at it I revise something. In all those revisions, I've learned one thing: I can't spell "guard" for the life of me. Be grateful for spell-check, hm? I'd like to say that's the only reason I haven't updated this one, but...at heart I'm a review-whore, so my other stories got fed first.

Thanks to everyone who reviewed Chapter One, and hopefully you'll like this one, too.

**_Salty As Tears_**

**_

Chapter Two

_**__

**_Honda:_**__

Captain ordered that we drug the prisoners. So I hurry down to the cargo hold where we keep everything important; food, gold, metal, weapons, medicine. Captain may not trust us, but he's far from afraid of us. He lets us handle his treasure, polish his gold, touch whatever we want because everyone knows he could tear us apart and feed us, mind and body both, to sharks and dragons if we so much as spit the wrong way. So nothing is locked up. The gold is out and open, just there for the taking. It's tempting and it makes my fingers itch just to look at it, but in the end I always turn aside.

Malik, our _former _first mate had his own share of the treasury. He actually wore more gold than the Captain. We always hinted at "something more" going on between those two, for Malik to be in such good graces with the "Cap'n", but who would actually say it? Not me, at least not while I like my tongue in my head instead of wagging at me from the top of the sails. Malik often threatened other sailors with that, and even went ahead and did it once or twice.

After gathering the sedatives I dash back up to the prisoners. I think I'll deal with Malik and the white-haired thief since they're nearest. Captain insists the thief was out to get our treasure. I never saw any proof that any mainlanders even _suspected_ our crew was anything but a bunch of fishermen, but I'll say again, I like my limbs in tact so I kept quiet.

The thief fights at first, but not much. He's shivering with pain, and probably not thinking about much besides staying still, so it's easy to get him to suck on the wad of plant root until he falls into near-sleep.

Malik, on the other hand, knows full well what I'm trying to do to him. He lashes out as much as he can and won't open his mouth, so I call Katsuya over.

Katsuya kneels on Malik's arms as I hastily press the small bundle of roots under his tongue. Malik's full mouth of teeth (often a source of envy for those of us who have already started to lose ours) clamp down on my fingers. Katsuya laughs and punches the other blond clean across the jaw. He failed to notice--or just ignored--that Malik's teeth are still firmly attached to my hand, and it tears the skin.

I stifle a yelp and wallop Katsuya, knock him to the deck, and kneel on his chest.

"I'm sorry, alright?" he says around a mouthful of blood. I let him up and he spits it out on the deck, wipes what's left, and stands up. We glower at each other and decide to head to opposite ends of the ship. We're friends and I trust him more than I do anyone else, but sometimes I think the only reason we haven't killed each other is because we always split up to cool off. The other guys just duel it out.

Malik smirks at me. He shouldn't be able to do that. The drugs are enough to keep him down for hours, but there he is sneering at me, even with his eyes glazed and half-shut.

I kick him as I make my way across the deck.

**_Ryou Bakura:_**

They've given me a job; my arms are still shackled, but loosely now. It's better than what is happening to the other prisoners I suppose. Mother always had me clean fish, too. She spent hours teaching me about it; 'be very careful to take the scales off'.

And here I am, sitting on dusty planks, tearing scales off of flat-eyed fish. The blade of my knife screams every time I move it against the little dead creature in my palm.

I used to get so sad when I had to do this. The fishes' sinking eyes would stare and in dry whispers they would beg me to let them go. I learned not to look at them, not in the eyes. It helped a little.

I pause to watch the movement on the port side of the deck. I recognize the plant they're giving my other prisoners, and suddenly I'm very glad I'm not over there. It's a sedative and I'm allergic to it. Mother never gave it to me like she did her other patients because it would kill me. I doubt the pirates know about allergies. I doubt they'd care.

I study my look-alike, frowning. He's still in shock; the pirates didn't do anything about that. The sedative might kill him, too. Shadows cling to him like bruises. His eyes are glazed and his head lolls a little with the movement of the ship.

Wind that tastes like seaweed and fish and tears sweeps across the deck, blowing salt against my skin. I blink and inch closer to the look-alike. No one notices. The two guards have vanished, tending to the sails or whatever else needs looking after on a ship.

There is nowhere to clean off my hands, either. Fish-scales and fish-blood will only make his wound worse. I have to settle for just wiping my hands off on my pants. It's not much, but I hope it's better than nothing.

As soon as I touch him-as I thought, he's in shock-I float away.

The sun shines down into me, blackening everything around me, and I hear faint whispers urging me to hurry, to be careful, to not forget this, to do that.

As soon as I've done all I'm told, the sun retreats and the world stills. Seconds later I'm back with the tilting lurch of a ship at sea. I hurry back to the fish.

**_Katsuya:_**

I can't believe he hit me. It's one thing to deck each other over something little, but it's...it's stupid, to do it in front of a prisoner. Even I know that. I glare across the ship, searching for him, itching to finish what he started. All I see are my shipmates. The stupid bastard probably ducked down to the galley or something.

I sigh and sit down on the empty stairs leading up to the helm. Underneath these very stairs is the doorway to the Captain's chambers where he does god-knows-what all day while the rest of us slave like apes. I rub my jaw and snort. Piss on the Captain. If I was a little dumber, I'd have joined Malik's mutiny.

...Malik did make it seem possible. For a moment, I even listened to him. We'd come up here to check over the nightwatch and he'd told me of better worlds we could go to, if I'd just help him and his crew. _His_ crew.

That's when I knew he would lose. Sure, he made it seem like I was in spitting distance of all the gold I could ever want, and all the women and ships and pigs too if I wanted them. But then he said _that._ He called us _his_ crew...and I knew the Captain was going to stop him. I almost pitied Malik then.

See, out of all of us, I think I'm the only one who's ever seen the Captain mad. Most of the time he's happy to let us do his filthy blood-work, but step on his toes the right way and....

Sharply, the wind stops smelling like ocean and becomes coppery, cold, sticky, as if memory itself is trying to slip up inside of me. I feel sick. I can't think about this right now. I haven't eaten all day, if I get sick now I'll waste away to nothing.

I bet Honda's cooled down by now. He'd better be anyway, cause I'm going to the galley and I don't care what he has to say.

**__****_Yugi Mutou:_**

You'd think you'd never get used to cleaning chamber pots. And now that I think about it, 'chamber pot' is a really polite word.

I'm used to them. You would be too, if they were all you did, day in and night out for years and years and....

My god. I've really been here that long.

"Yugi?" It's Katsuya. He's probably looking for Honda.

I look up at him and don't bother hiding how stunned and...saddened I am right now. Katsuya falters and finally stops in front of me, careful not to get close to the chamber pot I'm carrying.

"Yugi, are you alright? You look like..." he frowns, scrambling for what I look like. "...someone kicked you or something."

"No, it's just...I've been here a long time." I turn back to cleaning. "I wonder what my family has done since I came here, that's all. I've always thought I came here a day or two ago, and so my family would be searching for me. I guess...I guess they've stopped by now."

He shuffles his feet uneasily. "They all stop looking, Yugi. If they even...." He stops talking, takes a step closer to me and pauses again. "They'll be alright."

I have to believe him. He's never lied to me yet, and that's why we're friends. We don't say anything to each other we don't mean. "Okay."

He walks on, and his steps are quiet.


End file.
